The Very Thought of You: A Novel

Prologue

May 1964

My dearest,

Of all the many people we meet in a lifetime, it is strange that so many of us find ourselves in thrall to one particular person. Once that face is seen, an involuntary heartache sets in for which there is no cure. All the wonder of this world finds shape in that one person, and thereafter there is no reprieve, because this kind of love does not end, or not until death—

From Baxter’s

Guide to the Historic Houses of England (2007)

Any visitor travelling north from York will pass through a flat vale of farmland before rising steeply onto the wide upland plateau of the North Yorkshire Moors. Here is some of the wildest and loveliest land in England, where high rolling moorland appears to reach the horizon on every side, before subsiding into voluptuous wooded valleys.

These moors are remote and empty, randomly scattered with silent sheep and half-covered tracks. It is unfenced land of many moods. In February the place is barren and lunar, prompting inward reflection. But late in August this wilderness surges into bloom, igniting a purple haze of heather which sweeps across the moors as if released to the air. This vivid wash of color mingles with the oaks and ashes of the valleys below, where the soft limestone land flows with numerous streams and secret springs.

It is hallowed territory, graced with many medieval monasteries, all now picturesque ruins open to the sky. Rievaulx, Byland, Jervaulx, Whitby, Fountains—these are some of the better-known abbeys in these parts, and their presence testifies to the fertile promise of the land. The early monastic settlers cleared these valleys for farming, and left behind a patchwork of fields marked by many miles of drystone walls.

Nearly two centuries later, long after the monasteries had been dissolved, the Georgian gentry built several fine estates in the valleys bordering these moors. Hovingham Hall, Duncombe Park, Castle Howard and others. Trees were cleared for new vistas, grass terraces levelled and streams diverted into ornamental lakes—all to clarify and enhance the natural patterns of the land, as was the eighteenth-century custom.

One of the finest of these houses, if not necessarily the largest, is Ashton Park. This remote house stands on the edge of the moors, perched high above the steep Rye Valley and theatrically isolated in its wide park. For some years now, the house and its gardens have been open to the public. At one corner of an isolated village stand the ornate iron gates, and the park lodge where visitors buy their tickets. Beyond, a long white drive leads through a rising sweep of parkland, dotted with sheep and the occasional tree. It is a tranquil park, silent and still, with a wide reach of sky.

Turning to the left, the visitor sees at last the great house itself, a Palladian mansion of honeyed stone, balanced on either side with curved wings. Topping the forecourt gates are two stone figures rearing up on hind legs, a lion and a unicorn, each gazing fiercely at the other as if sworn to secrecy.

The house appears a touch doleful in its solitary grandeur, an impression which only intensifies when one enters the imposing but empty Marble Hall, with its scattering of statues on plinths. Red rope cordons mark the start of a house tour through reception rooms dressed like stage sets, leading this visitor to wonder how the house could have dwindled into quite such a counterfeit version of its past.

The guide brochure explains that when the last Ashton died, in 1979, there remained only a distant cousin in South Africa. Mrs Sandra De Groot, wife of a prominent manufacturer, appears to have been so daunted by her inheritance that she agreed to hand Ashton Park over to the National Trust in lieu of drastic death duties. But not before the estate was stripped of its remaining farmland and other valuable assets. Two Rubens paintings were sold, alongside a Claude Lorrain, a Salvator Rosa and a pair of Constables. Soon after, her lawyers organized a sweeping sale of the house contents—a multitude of Ashton treasures accumulated over three hundred years, all recorded without sentiment in a stapled white inventory.

One pair of carved George IV giltwood armchairs, marked; one Regency rosewood and brass-inlaid breakfast table; one nineteenth-century ormolu centerpiece …

Antique dealers from far and wide still reminisce about the Ashton auction of 1980, the final rite of a house in decline. It is said that a queue of removal vans clogged the drive for days afterwards.

Mrs De Groot was apparently not without family feeling, because she donated a number of display cabinets to the National Trust, together with the house library and many family portraits and papers. In a curious detail, the brochure mentions that the exquisite lacquered cigarette cases of the late Elizabeth Ashton were sent to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

According to the notes, Ashton Park had fallen into disrepair before its reclamation. But the curators retrieved plenty of family relics and mementoes, and the walls are now hung with photographs of the Ashton sons at Eton, at Oxford, in cricket teams, in uniform. A look of permanence lingers in their faces. Downstairs are photographs of the servants, the butler and his staff all standing on the front steps, their gaze captured in that strange measure of slow time so characteristic of early cameras.

Beyond the Morning Room and past the Billiard Room, a small study displays an archive of wartime evacuees. It appears that an evacuees’ boarding school was established at Ashton Park in 1939, and a touching photograph album reveals children of all sizes smiling in shorts and gray tunics; handwritten letters, sent in later years, describe the pleasures and sorrows of their time there.

In the last corridor there is only one photograph, an elegant wedding picture of the final Ashton heir, dated 1929. Thomas Ashton is one of those inscrutably handsome prewar men with swept-back hair, and his wife Elizabeth is a raven-haired period beauty not unlike Vivien Leigh. Their expressions carry no hint of future losses, no sense that their house will one day become a museum.

On high days and holidays, Ashton Park attracts plenty of day-trippers. An estate shop sells marmalade and trinkets, while the gardens offer picnic spots, woodland trails and dubious medieval pageants on the south lawn. And yet visitors may drive away from Ashton Park feeling faintly dejected, because the spirit of this place has somehow departed.

This melancholy cannot be traced to any dilapidation. The roof is intact, the lawns freshly mown, and the ornamental lake looks almost unnaturally limpid. But the dark windows stare out blankly—a haunted gaze. Beyond the display areas are closed corridors and unreclaimed rooms stacked with pots of paint and rusting stepladders. The small family chapel remains but is rarely visited: it is too far out of the way to qualify for the house tour.

Perhaps it is the family’s absence which gives Ashton its pathos. It appears that there were three sons and a daughter at the start of the last century, and yet none of them produced heirs. By what cumulative misfortune did this once prosperous family reach its end? The brochure notes do not detail how or why the Ashton line died out, yet a curious visitor cannot help but wonder.

But for all this, one can still stand on the sunken lawn and almost apprehend the house in its heyday, even amidst the signposts and litter bins. One can imagine how others—in earlier times, in the right weather—might have found in this place a peerless vision of English parkland.

There is one tree which particularly draws the eye, a glorious ruddy copper beech which stands alone on a small lawn by the rose garden. It was on a bench under this tree that the duty staff recently found an elderly woman sitting alone after closing hours, apparently enjoying the view. On closer inspection she was found to be serenely dead, her fingers locked around a faded love letter.

Evacuation

1939

1

London, 31 August 1939

THERE WAS A hint of afternoon sunshine as Anna Sands and her mother, Roberta, stepped off their bus into Kensington High Street. To Anna, the broad street flickered with color as shoppers flowed past her, clutching their bags. Beyond the crowds, she could see the parade of shops tricked out with displays of every kind: tins of toffee, new-minted bowls and cups, rolls of ribbon, hats, coats and gloves from every corner of the empire.

Mother and daughter set off down the wide pavement, Anna swinging her arms, always a little ahead. But she kept crisscrossing in front of her mother, as if uncertain whether to turn and hold her hand. For tomorrow, early, she and thousands of other children were to be evacuated from London—In case of German air raids, her mother had told her airily, as if this was a standard routine for all families.

Once this crisis is over, you can come straight home again, she had explained. Anna was looking forward to country life—or seemed to be, when asked. There were things to buy for the journey, but Anna’s impending departure hovered between them and lit every moment with unusual intimacy.

Roberta’s nerves and Anna’s excitement meshed into mutual high spirits as they strolled through the penny arcades, just for the fun of it, before reaching Pontings, the famous drapers, with its fluted pillars and white-iron galleries.

This was Anna’s favorite shop, an Aladdin’s cave of colored cloths and trimmings, laden with rolls of silk and swathes of damask. On the ground floor, beyond the hanging boas, she chose herself a white handkerchief starred with violets.

"Thank you," she said, kissing her mother.

While Roberta queued to pay, Anna glanced upwards to the bright atrium above, where sunshine streamed through the stained-glass flowers in rays of colored light. Anna’s eyes swam around the shop, with its reams of ribbons and baskets of glinting buttons, brass, silver, mother-of-pearl. The sounds of the shop receded as the dream light washed through her until, for a moment, she vanished from herself.

You can carry your package, my darling, said her mother, breaking her reverie. Anna sprang to attention, and was the first out of the shop, planning the next purchase. At Woolworth’s they bought a small cardboard case and luggage labels for Anna’s journey, then they crossed the road to look for shoes.

Shiny brown lace-ups they bought, at Barkers. They smelt new and luxuriant. They reminded Anna of her father in his uniform, with his big black boots. She and her mother had seen him off a month ago, just after her eighth birthday; he had swung her right round when she hugged him good-bye. Sometimes he sent her letters with funny drawings, describing his army drills. She wasn’t really worried about him, because it was common knowledge that most of Hitler’s tanks were made of cardboard.

Britain has the greatest empire in the world, so the war won’t last long, she announced to the bespectacled lady who fitted her shoes.

Then mother and daughter were out on the street again. It was time for Anna’s promised treat: a knickerbocker glory. She had seen American films in which children sat at counters, with ice creams in tall glasses. That was her dream.

Roberta led the way through the art deco splendor of Derry and Tom’s department store, along lavish blue carpets, whisper-quiet, until they reached a wall of lifts and stepped into a cool chamber of copper and nickel.

Fifth floor, ladies and gentlemen, world-famous roof gardens, chanted the liveried lift boy. The gardens had opened with much fanfare a year ago, but they had never visited: it was too dear.

But today was special, and they emerged to glittering sunlight amidst the rooftops of Kensington. Before them, a profusion of flowers stretched away on every side, outstripping all their hopes. There was a Spanish garden, with a terra-cotta Moorish tower, and tumbling bougainvillea. Beyond, through a winding courtyard, they found themselves in a water garden of lily pads with a hint of gleaming carp. Another turn took them through dainty Elizabethan arches with climbing roses.

They found their way to the café, with tables set out beneath striped umbrellas, and a fountain tinkling nearby. From the tall menu Anna picked her ice cream with care: vanilla and chocolate, topped with cream and cherries and nuts. To her mother’s relief, she did not seem disappointed when the towering confection arrived.

A small palm-court band played familiar melodies, muting any sound from the streets below. The unreality of the place and the peculiar occasion of their visit only increased their light-headed pleasure in each other.

Before today, have you ever sat in a garden in the sky? asked Anna.

Never, laughed her mother, nor would I want to, without you here too.

When I get home again, can we come back here?

Of course, sweetheart.

With Daddy too?

"For sure," said Roberta, and clasped her daughter’s hand.

Later, when the ice cream was finished, and the teacups empty, and the garden’s secrets all explored, they set off together, subdued, for home.

It was not until they reached the store’s entrance lobby that Anna admitted the one shadow lurking over her day: she had no bathing costume.

Anna had seen the newsreels about evacuation, and they all showed children traveling westwards, to the seaside, to Devon and Cornwall. She longed to join them, but feared that with all they had spent that day a bathing costume would be one item too many to ask for.

But how will I swim? she blurted out.

Roberta paused to hear her child’s fumbled request, and knew at once that she must keep this afternoon intact, not scupper her daughter’s hopes. Back to the lifts they went, and up to the sporting department. With abandon, Roberta spent two shillings on a blue striped bathing costume, and saw her daughter’s face shine with pleasure. It was more than she meant to pay, but it perfected the afternoon. Then they set off for the underground station, united in satisfaction.

As Anna skipped ahead, Roberta rejoiced in her daughter, knowing that she was bright and resourceful, with an uncluttered face easily lit by smiles. That tiny gap between her front teeth gave her a frank charm.

They clattered down the station steps, Anna always in front. A train rolled in and opened its doors, and passengers stepped past them. Suddenly, on the half-filled platform, Roberta found herself brimming over with love for her straw-haired child.

Anna— she said, and Anna turned, her eyes bright and clear. In that instant, Roberta sensed the spontaneous rise of her daughter’s soul, which had flickered to life in her eight years before. She reached out for her daughter and held her fast in her arms. For a moment, they could feel each other’s heartbeats.

I love you, my darling, said Roberta, stroking her daughter’s hair.

Anna looked up at her mother with unblinking eyes.

In the years to come, she would remember that fragile day, its touchless light, their quiet elations.

2

Warsaw, 1 September 1939

INSIDE THE WARSAW embassy, Sir Clifford Norton had been up most of the night; now he watched a pale-blue dawn that was serenely oblivious to their troubles. Vaguely, he realized that the last summer of the decade was over.

All night his staff had been working in shifts, everyone engaged in these final frantic negotiations to stave off war. Typists had been rattling away, telephones ringing, messengers coming and going, even his wife had been there with her small portable typewriter, encoding and deciphering telegrams.

Danzig, Danzig, Danzig was the word on every letter and report. The Polish port had rapidly grown from a place to a principle, Norton reflected, as Hitler demanded its release into the Reich. Now they were facing a diplomatic deadlock, and the embassy was on emergency alert. But at this early hour, some of the staff were still napping on camp beds, and Norton was alone in his office waiting for the next round of telegrams from London.

Suddenly craving the new day, he pushed his curtains right back until he could feel the arrival of daylight, subtle, spreading, now obscuring his desk light. The brightness cheered him; there was still a time for spurious delight.

The eerie disquiet of these last summer weeks had been contagious. Warsaw was gripped by a strange Totentanz, the restaurants overflowing with odd gaiety and the hotels thronged with journalists firing off telegrams and spreading rumors. The shops had run out of sugar and candles, and the Poles had been burying their silver and crystal in gardens and parks.

The telephone on his desk rang, startling him. Five forty-five A.M. It was the consul in Katowice.

The Germans are in. Tanks over the border at 5 A.M.

The news struck Norton distantly, as if it was a piece of history which might roll past him if he stepped aside. This was the moment they had all been waiting for, yet it had never seemed inevitable.

Norton had not yet put on his shoes. The floor beneath his feet seemed to push upwards, hard. He felt as if he were living in the third person. He put down the telephone and spurred himself into mechanical action, cabling the news to London, rallying his staff.

In the embassy, people came and went as if in a dream. Only a few hours ago they were still negotiating the price of peace, they thought, but Hitler had outmaneuvered them all.

At six A.M. Norton heard an air engine and went out onto the embassy balcony. Straight ahead in the clear sky, he watched a German fighter plane swooping over the Vistula. Sirens wailed, and there was a boom of antiaircraft guns. That was a shock; the first air raid in Warsaw so soon. War had reached them already.

3

London, 1 September 1939

ANNA LAY ON her back, suspended in the stillness of sleep. Roberta sat on the bed and smoothed back her daughter’s hair until she opened her eyes.

They both smiled, then Anna reached out her hand.

There had been so many things to prepare for the evacuation. They had already picked up the new gas mask, in a box you could carry over your shoulder. The previous evening, Roberta had carefully packed Anna’s case with three changes of clothes and her wash things. And her bathing costume, of course. Her mother also produced a surprise book as a special treat. Into this she had slipped a loving letter and a family photograph.

Roberta had stowed the food in an extra bag, because she didn’t want Anna to open her case and have everything else fall out. There was a tin of evaporated milk, some corned beef, two apples and a bar of chocolate. There was also a luggage label with Anna’s name and school on it, and her age.

A label, round my neck? asked Anna, surprised. It felt strange, the itchy string against her skin.

Anna had already decided not to take her teddy with her, in case anyone laughed at him. So she propped Edward on her pillow and kissed him good-bye.

I won’t be long, she promised him.

Roberta was so anxious as she fed her daughter that she had no chance to feel sentimental. But she was careful to be loving, not impatient, as they put on their coats and left their Fulham house. There was little time for Anna to look back at the green front door and be sad.

But as they walked together towards the school, both of them began to feel the ache of parting. The coming separation made Roberta breathless—it would be several days before she could know where Anna had been sent. She thought with dread of some dismal, dirty house.

"You must keep your hands clean," she said.

Walking along in the cloudy sunshine, war seemed remote and unimaginable. Roberta wondered how she could be doing this to her beloved daughter. Perhaps war would not touch them. Perhaps it would not happen. Would any German planes really fly as far as London?

After her husband joined up, her first thought had been to leave the city with Anna. But they had no family outside London, nor the means to move. So, like other reluctant mothers, she had signed up for the evacuation scheme: all the parents at Anna’s school had been urged to take part. At first she had thought she could go with Anna, but was later informed that only nursing mothers would be able to stay with their children. It’ll only be temporary, Roberta told herself.

Anna, meanwhile, had no such trepidation. She assumed that all the evacuees would be going to the seaside, like a holiday. She had only ever been on a beach once before, at Margate, and she was longing to run through wet sand again. And now she had her own bathing costume, packed and ready.

She was expecting adventure; she had read so many fairy tales that she longed to set out into the world alone. Like Dick Whittington. The long road, the child with a small case, it seemed only natural.

Her shoes were polished, her socks were clean. She carried her kit with pride. She did not fear parting; her mother’s face felt closer than her pulse. She could not yet imagine any rift.

Beneath the red-brick gaze of the old Victorian school they joined an uneasy crowd of mothers, fathers, children, all there to say farewell. Children were crying, some of them howling. Mothers also were weeping. A sudden sadness washed over Roberta, though she and Anna were too resolutely independent to make any public display of sentiment. But still Roberta’s resolve wavered. She sought out a head teacher to ask where the children would be going.

Buses will take them to St. Pancras station.

Can we go with them there?

No, I’m sorry, he said defensively, you must say good-bye here.

There was a long wait in the school yard, and children sat on the ground, yawning. Roberta and Anna stood together, not saying much, just holding hands. Soon they were organized into class lines, with teachers ticking names on clipboards. Roberta was proud that Anna looked so pretty, so bright and fresh.

She could always take her back home again.

Suddenly the buses arrived, coming on from another school in World’s End. Before Roberta had the chance to change her mind and retrieve her child, the crowd’s momentum had swept Anna’s class forwards. Without a backwards glance, Anna hurried to find a seat. She put down her bags and realized that, after so much waiting, she had hardly said good-bye to her mother. She pressed her face to the window.

There she was below, looking up at her—gleaming brown hair, and a smile meant for her alone, wishing her every joy and all good things.

Good-bye, Mummy! called Anna, through the glass. Suddenly, she began crumpling inside as she fixed her gaze on her mother. She could feel the pull of her mother’s eyes right through her—until she was going, gone, and Anna was away on her journey.

She sank down in her seat. The bus had a sour smell of stale cigarettes which made her nauseous. She yawned in the heat; there wasn’t much air. She felt odd—excited and suspended in a strange new world, where anything might happen. She did not miss her mother yet, because she was still so firmly rooted inside her—her face, her voice, her touch.

But for Roberta the separation was immediate. She walked back home from the school feeling limp, like a wilting plant. The trees she passed looked parched and weary, and the pavement was cracked beneath her feet. The dryness of late summer was all around her, and the streets seemed unnaturally deserted.

Had she made the right choice?

4

ANNA’S SCHOOL BUS arrived first at Paddington station and sat there dead-engined for an hour. An inconstant sun came and went, making the children fidgety. Some of them disembarked there, but not Anna.

Her bus pushed on to St. Pancras—magical, colorful St. Pancras, a riot of exotic brickwork. Anna had never seen this station before. Climbing from the bus, she glanced upwards at red Gothic spires rising to the sky—they looked like the towers of a fairy-tale castle, the first step in a great adventure.

Inside, the vast vaulted space thrilled her. Steam was rising from the trains; their smokestacks were trailing wisps of white up to colossal arched girders. Beyond the platforms, the sky was framed like a stained-glass cathedral window—an infinite window of bright blue.

But she was being pushed forwards, and there was little time to stop and look. The station was seething with crosscurrents of children and parents; it was hard not to get caught in the wrong queue. Station announcements and men with loudspeakers only aggravated the chaos. Many children seemed to have brothers or sisters, some of them very young and wanting to go to the lavatory. Anna felt strong in herself, and sorry for those who were looking miserable. She clutched her belongings carefully—the case, the food bag, the gas-mask box.

She longed for the seaside.

A great clock hung over the sea of bewildered children, ticking away the morning. Gradually, Anna’s excitement began to dwindle, and the magic of the steel cathedral faded as they queued along the platform, waiting for something to happen. They stood, they sat on the ground. The platform was grimy, and there was an acrid smell which burned her nose.

Where are we going? Where? The whisper of unanswered questions swept up and down the lines of children, dozens of young faces screwed into supplicant expressions.

At last her group was led towards a train. Mrs. Martin, her class teacher, ticked her off a list as she clambered on board with